Thursday, 7 April 2011

Burda Style 04-2010-117, Merino rib knit cardigan

I am patting myself on the back about the thriftiness of this cardigan. Other aspects of the cardigan are not quite up to patting status.
It is made from merino rib knit left over from making a man's long sleeve t shirt - one arm is pieced but this does not seem terribly noticable.
The pattern is from Burda Style 04-2010-117.
There is an excellent review of this pattern here, and another one about how to draft a knit binding for the cardigan here, both by Mary Nanna (I am not really stalking you, it is just a coincidence that I am mentioning you in every post)
Unfortunately, I did not follow the excellent advice in these reviews, and in Burda's sewing lesson, to stabilize the seams. I was feeling far too lazy to cut bias strips of interfacing, and gambling that rib knit would be more stable at the armholes that a jersey. This gamble has almost paid off - I did stabilize the shoulder seams, and the armscye seams and side seams are not too stretchy. However,you may notice that I have changed the neckline and front binding from a woven, as shown in the magazine, to a coverstitch applied knit binding - and did not stabilize before application. This was not successful. The rib knit is extremely stretchy, and although I took pains to avoid any tension on the binding as it was applied, the binding attachment had other ideas - see that curling edge at the front?
I waved this at my daughter, complaining loudly about the perfidy of the coverstitch machine and how I hated unpicking the darstardly multi thread stitching, and was instantly relieved of the cardigan. No, she did not want a new binding, No, she did not want heavy buttons on one side and a weight in the hem on the other. No one, she said, would notice the curling edge - except for those who read sewing blogs. Hmmm.

I have made the sleeve a little wider on the right, to accomodate the cast, but this will be easily adjusted to fit once the cast comes off.
I actually made the cardigan to co-ordinate with a scarf I knit for her. I like the scarf more than the cardigan, but the cardigan will be very useful.

Hey I'd be honoured to be stalked, so am a little disappointed it's only co-incidence.

Great cardy and great daughter for not caring about the character features of cardy. My son is going through that awful stage where he will not wear anything new. We have to leave new things lying around casually so they look like old rags before he'll even consider them...